How should I  behave around here? Who can I talk to about volunteering my services? The questions are endless but it's a raffle to know who I can safely talk to and get an accurate answer — real help.

Experienced people seem to quickly forget what it's like to enter TI for the first few times until you get familiar. To a new person, everyone else is a "buddhist" and fully ofay with what's going on. I've seen people being berated for sitting in "my chair" in the gompa and being admonished for stepping over books on the floor or on a cushion (that people's bums go on) — not a friendly welcome that encourages them to come back next time.

So, I've long toyed with the idea of having trained people in hi vis jackets, badges, hats or something that identifies them as an official TI rep at events. There is a double advantage here; on the one side it helps new people, on the other side it gives acknowledgement and responsibility to the rep to behave like a Buddhist at least for those few hours.

But now I'm thinking we should have a lanyard system so that people will know who is an Elder, who is on the EC, who is on the Management Committee, who is an office holder — make everyone visible.

Of course, no one will want to wear one but we should encourage them to think of what it does for others and not that it is any kind of boasting for them.